We are underway!

The day has finally arrived and we wasted no time as everyone was up early, eager to get underway. We left Port Tarpon Marina with a full contingent of marina neighbors aboard our friends Bob and Dietland Coan’s Sea Ray to escort us out of the Anclote river.

Bob, DeeDee, Bruce & Myra escorting us down the Anclote River

(Pilots Discretion underway at 29 knots)

Once clear of the Anclote we turned south and headed down the ICW (Intracoastal Waterway) for Venice. As it turned out, nature wasted no time providing us a spectacular preview of the the wonders that await us in our new world of cruising.

(Dolphin in our wake)

A pod of dolphins took up station on our bow wave less than an hour into our trip and the boys got a front row seat as the dolphins took turns gliding just below the surface in front of our anchor and then breaking off to jump clear of the water and trail us in our wake. We did have a brief encounter with a few afternoon thundershowers while crossing Sarasota Bay but that really only served to give us a free freshwater wash down.

The first days run was completed in 10 hours after which we dined aboard and all hands slept like logs, exhausted but full of anticipation for the journey ahead. I am putting up a screen shot of our route with this post and we will create a subcategory within our blog to archive each days travel so that you can reference each leg of our trip as your curiosity warrants. Thanks to all of you that have sent along well wishes.

Pilots’ Discretion track on day 1

The crew of the Pilots’ Discretion
Randy, Theresa, Ryan, Ronan and Patton

That’s awesome! I hope you all have the most wonderful time. Keep us posted.

You have the con

Best,

Rick & Fredda

On Sun, Sep 28, 2014 at 4:56 PM, pilotsdiscretiondotcom wrote:

> Randy posted: “Saturday September 27, 2014 0800 > http://youtu.be/C6A096MoepE ( The boys cast off) The day has finally > arrived and we wasted no time as everyone was up early, eager to get > underway. We left Port Tarpon Marina with a full contingent of marina > neighb”

Very happy that all of you will be able to share in this life changing adventure together and grateful that all of us get to enjoy your experience through this blog!!! I’ll keep the crew at Davidson’s Dockside updated as I receive all the exciting news. Your family will be greatly missed at the Port Tarpon Marina, however an event such as this is hardly sad! Congratulations and bon voyage.
P.S. I’ve got all the ingredients for turtle pie awaiting Ryan and Ronan returns 🙂